Reluctantly Yours(52)

“He’s so sweet.” Chloe laughs when Baxter licks her mouth.

“Well, I’ll let you get acquainted with Baxter here, and I’ll go grab the rest of his stuff from the car.”

As Jillian descends the steps it dawns on me that this ball of fur intends to stay here. In my house.

“What the hell, Chloe? You adopted a dog?”

“No. I’m fostering a dog.” She buries her face into his curly mane. “Don’t worry. Baxter’s temporary, just like me.”

She lifts her eyes to mine and I see the challenge there.

“No. No way. No dogs. We had this conversation last week in the car.”

“You said dogs were messy. Baxter is fully house-trained and he’s hypoallergenic. No shedding.”

“I don’t have time for a dog.”

“Baxter isn’t for you. He’s for me. I’ll be taking care of him.” She nuzzles his nose and a ripple of jealousy settles into my gut. It’s ridiculous. I’m not jealous of a dog.

Jillian returns with a bag full of supplies.

“Everything is in here. Even a small supply of food. He prefers a vegan diet, all-natural ingredients made from scratch.”

I shoot Chloe a death glare, but she just smiles.

“I’ll take care of it.” Shifting Baxter to one side, she accepts the bag from Jillian. “Thank you.”

“What’s the return policy?” I ask. Both women’s heads jerk in my direction.

Jillian gives me a small smile. “If this pairing doesn’t work out, you’re free to bring him back to the rescue shelter, but ideally we’d love for Baxter to stay here until he matches with his forever home.”

“And how long will that be?” I ask.

“It could be next week; it could be a few months.”

“Thank you, Jillian.” Chloe sees her to the door.

When she returns, I stare at the ball of fur in her arms.

“You can keep him for a day,” I say.

“What?”

“It’ll be like a dog for a day. Then he needs to go back.”

“That’s silly.”

“Chloe, I’m serious,” I say, with an edge to my tone.

“I am, too.” She doesn’t back down. “I’m putting it on my list.”

“You can’t do that.”

“What do you mean? You said anything as long as it doesn’t interfere with your business deal or our fake relationship.”

Fuck. She’s right. A dog, while not anything I want to deal with, fits into the parameters of the agreement I spelled out. And he won’t be here permanently. He’s temporary, like Chloe.

Chloe notices the moment that I realize this, her face lighting up even brighter than it did when she was snuggling Baxter. I’ve never seen her smile like that. She’s happy. The dog makes her happy. Looking at Chloe my chest feels tight, but I refuse to acknowledge what it could mean.

“Fine,” I mutter.

“You say that like you’re allowing it, not like you had no choice.”

I follow Chloe back into the kitchen where our food is still sitting at the table. She sets the dog on the floor, then opens the bag Jillian gave her with his food in it.

I grab our plates to reheat the food that is now ice cold, thanks to Baxter’s arrival.

He moves to follow me, obviously thinking I’m going to feed him.

On my way to the microwave, he gets tangled under my feet and I almost drop the plates on the floor.

“Chloe, why is the dog next to me? There’s all this space.” I motion to the open concept chef’s kitchen around us. “It doesn’t need to be right underfoot.”

Chloe bites her bottom lip, trying not to laugh. “I think he likes you.”

While the food reheats, Baxter sits near my feet, looking up at me and wagging his tail.

“This is not for you.” I point toward the food in the microwave. “In fact, none of this is yours,” I motion to our surroundings, “so don’t get used to it.”

He just stares back, mouth open, and with that dopey look on his face.

“Don’t let the cranky man scare you, Baxter,” Chloe says, coming around the island to set his bowl of food on the floor near the table. “His bark is worse than his bite.”

She knows nothing about my bite. If she did, she’d take those words back.

Baxter busies himself with eating the food in his bowl while I set our plates on the table.

While we eat, Chloe’s attention wanders to the curly-haired dog slopping food out of his bowl.

“Isn’t he cute?” she asks.

“Cute? More like messy.”

Chloe laughs. “Do you ever plan to have kids? Because if you think Baxter is messy, you’re in for a real treat.”

“Kids get older, then they take care of themselves.”

“Sure, but there are a lot of messes in there before that happens. You do remember being a kid, don’t you?”

“My father was much older than my mother when they married and had me. He liked things to be in their place. Kids were to be seen, not heard.”

“He would have hated my house. Five different voices, all trying to talk at once.” She pauses a moment to take a bite of the salmon. “How old were you when he died?”